Posted on 02/03/2009 8:09:23 AM PST by mnehring
The 'world's cheapest laptop', developed in India, was unveiled by Union Minister for Human Resources Development Arjun Singh at the Tirupati temple on Tuesday evening.
The laptop, jointly developed by several organisations, such as the University Grants Commission, the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, will be priced at around $10 to $20 (about Rs 500 to Rs 1,000), officials said.
S K Sinha, joint secretary in the ministry for education, giving a demonstration of the device which is smaller than the normal laptop, said that it will need some more fine-tuning. He said the laptop is expected to reach the market in about six months.
Arjun Singh had an interaction with the vice chancellors of the remote states like Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur to prove the point that the device will be able to bring about high quality networking among the various institutions of higher education and also increase the skills of e learning of the students in rural areas.
The project has already created a buzz in the laptop industry across the world.
The laptop has 2 GB onboard memory with wireless Internet connectivity. To make it useful for the students, especially in the rural areas, the scientists have made it low power consuming gadget.
The mission was launched at a huge gathering of academicians and the officials from across the country including thirty vice chancellors of central and state universities at the campus of Sri Venkateshwara University Tirupati.
Like the National Mission on Education through ICT, the laptop is also aimed at improving the skills of students, both at the school and higher levels. Under the mission the government also intends to provide high-speed Internet access to the schools to download e-books and e-journals and other material. Students will be able to download the material through the 'Sakshat' portal.
The goal of the national mission is to increase the enrollment in higher education in the country by 5 per cent over the next five years. The government will subsidise 25 per cent of broadband connectivity costs for private and public colleges.
The $10 laptop is being seen as India's reply to One Laptop per Child's XO and Classmate of Intel. The XO, created by scientist Nicholas Negroponte and MIT Media Lab was originally targeted to cost only $100 but by the time it was ready to enter the market its cost went up to $188. The Classmate notebook PC from Intel was priced at $ 300 a piece.
In contrast, the Indian government's effort to market lap top at only $10 has caused a flutter in the international laptop market and many players are curious to know the details of the costing and how Indians managed to keep the cost so low.
Nicholas Negroponte is not fully satisfied with the cost projection. "I fear it is not serious. We'd love a $20 laptop but the display costs more," he was quoted as saying by Boston Globe.
Link goes to Tactus info page.
Watch the heat on that HP - they are like skillets. Let it cool down and power off when not using. Good luck
Amazon and Tigerdirect have good deals on Asus netbooks right now with 160gb hard drives and xp home in the $300-330 range. Also Acer Aspire with 160gb and better keyboard in this price range
***Asus EeePC laptops can be purchased for under $300 (though better to buy the ones online vs Targets really stripped down model.)
Very happy with them.***
I built two modern computers for $515. I can build one computer for about 200 with the extra parts I have lying around.
The BBC reports that it might have been a mistranslation, and that they actually announced a laptop that would cost around $100US.
“I can build one computer for about 200 with the extra parts I have lying around.”
That’s commendable, but unless you value your time at $0 per hour, $200 presumably isn’t the price you’d ever want to charge for such a thing.
Nah, this one really hasn’t been a problem.
$100 makes more sense. I can see that.
I remember when Bill Gates said that the price of a computer should soon drop below $1,000 and it was very difficult for many people to imagine. I sold CD players in the very early 80’s and remembered the sony machine was $1,300. Even then me and my salesman buddies (who sold those gas-tube-laser pioneer laserdisk players for $750) thought the machines would quickly drop to $250.
In all seriousness, I suspect that a useable computer will be below $50 2009 dollars within a decade.
That looks cool, but gives no kenetic feedback. Flat screen data entry interfaces are a real pain. It is one thing people like about the T-Mobile G1 compared to the iPhone - the actual buttons.
>>Watch the heat on that HP - they are like skillets.<<
Ok, you JERK!!! I tried your idea and now I got egg stuck between all my keys!
The good news is that it is fully cooked so removing it is not as hard as I thought it would be...
Ha...try the bacon!
I don't know but it's nothing Microsoft makes. Vista needs 2 gb of ram just to crash, never mind run. A 2 gb hard drive wouldn't supply enough space for the 10 gb virtual memory vista needs to dumb all the BAK files it makes.
You can get a "new" acer at walmart for less than that. (duo quad core 2gb ram thing)
When I bought my wifes $430 laptop I was gonna strip Vista and use xp, but I cleaned it up, removed a lot of stuff that she didn’t need (the anti-virus software kept WI-FI from working at first) and the thing flys with two gig.
I was actually surprised.
quick access democrat donkey botton?
*ss speak translation button?
>>Thats commendable, but unless you value your time at $0 per hour, $200 presumably isnt the price youd ever want to charge for such a thing.<<
I am a bass player in a few bands. I consider it the equivalent of being on a softball team. I do it for fun. I think a lot of people do this regarding building computers and writing software for Linux. That is why it is getting hard for companies to make money.
One cannot create a commercial jetliner from spare parts lying around their house, so Boeing is pretty safe. Software, music, and other consumer goods that are just fun to tinker with are at risk. It is one reson why bands are paid less in real dollars today than they were in the 1960’s. Gigs pay somewhere in the $300 to $600 neighborhood today and paid more than double that in the 1960’s. Heck, a person could have lived on it back then.
And SERIOUSLY TALENTED musicians/songwriters perform every day in Nashville FOR TIPS!!!
Hey, you have the same laptop as my boss!
2Gb of Memory. Can you even buy 2G of memory for $10?
However, to have a little fun with it, we also bought a full-size Etch-a-Sketch and, when we purchased the laptop, I carefully opened the box and removed the computer, replacing it with the laptop, sealing the box and then wrapping it in Christmas wrapping paper.
We hid the laptop in another box that we were taking over to their house on post and, when we got there, we told her that the box was just to use as a expendable trashcan for all of the discarded paper.
We gave her, first, the printer that we got to go with the computer. That really lit up her eyes because she knew that she didn't have a computer to go with it. Then, she unwrapped the computer box and she got really excited about it. The look on her face when she opened the box, removed the packing material, and found the Etch-a-Sketch was just classic. She really lost herself in giggles when my wife showed her how to reboot hew new computer ... holding it upside down over her head and shaking it vigorously.
Anyway, she got the new laptop and everything was okay. My stepson is due home from Iraq on March 13th ...
RESISTOR
Swear allegiance to the flag, whatever flag they offer;
Never hint at what you really feel.
Teach the children quietly for, someday, sons and daughters
Will rise up and fight while we stood still.
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